


The Layton Family Bake Peanut Butter Cookies

by RainyMeadows



Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Baking, Cookies, Cooking, Cooking Lessons, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Good Parent Hershel Layton, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25188091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyMeadows/pseuds/RainyMeadows
Summary: And a good time is had by all. Loosely tied to The Families of Jean Descole.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 39





	The Layton Family Bake Peanut Butter Cookies

Flora twisted the knob, eyes narrowed in concentration, until she had turned the oven’s temperature to 180°C.

“So three ounces?” asked Des.

“We’re doubling the recipe,” Hershel reminded him, “so I’d say six instead.”

“Good grief, man, that’s most of the block!”

“I know, but we don’t want our finished product to be dry.”

With a shrug, Des sliced the brick of butter into as close to four equal pieces as he could.

“Professor, wait!” Flora snatched up the recipe and held it up for her foster father to see. “You’re trying to use butter! The recipe says we need margarine!”

Hershel chuckled at her enthusiasm.

“I understand your concern, Flora,” he said, easing the book out of her trembling fingers, “but you needn’t worry. In terms of cooking, butter and margarine are more-or-less interchangeable.”

“And besides,” Des cut in as he plopped the slices of butter into the scale pan, “butter is healthier than margarine. Do you know what either of them is made of?”

Flora pressed a finger against her cheek and hummed in thought.

“Butter is milk,” Alfendi responded. “I know that. It’s milk what got left out in an earthquake.”

Des snorted and shakily dropped the last slice into the pan.

“I wouldn’t have phrased it quite like that,” said Hershel, “but yes. Butter is made of solidified dairy fats, usually created by churning milk or cream.”

“But what about margarine?” Katrielle swung her tiny legs under her chair as she spoke. “What’s that made of?”

“Traditionally,” said Des, “animal fat.”

Flora, Alfendi and Katrielle all balked.

“Ew!” squeaked the youngest of the three.

“Des, _please,_ ” Hershel chided before turning to the trio. “What he says is correct – margarine was made of solidified animal fat when it was first created – but these days it’s typically made with vegetable oil. You’ll find that butter is overall healthier for you, as margarine tends to include non-essential trans fats, and even leaving that aside, butter simply tastes better.”

“Which is why,” said Des as he scraped the measured slices into the mixing bowl, “we’re using it for this recipe instead of margarine.”

He wrapped up what was left of the butter and returned it to the bread cupboard.

“But what about peanut butter?” asked Flora.

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that,” said Alfendi. “The fuck is peanut butter made of?”

“ ** _ALFIE!_** ”

Everybody in the kitchen froze. Des almost dropped the jar in shock and Flora covered herself with her arms.

Hershel cleared his throat. He hadn’t meant to shout _that_ loudly. It seemed some certain friends of his were rubbing off on him in ways he hadn’t expected.

“My apologies,” he said softly. “Alfendi, _please_ watch your language. Katrielle is right beside you and her teachers won’t look kindly upon me if a five-year-old girl is cursing at her classmates.”

Alfendi withdrew into his bony shoulders.

“…sorry,” he mumbled.

“Apology accepted,” Hershel replied. “I’m afraid I can’t say what separates peanut butter from regular butter aside from simply that it contains peanuts. That being said, you don’t happen to be allergic, do you?”

The teen crossed his arms over his stomach, shrinking back even further, and his eyes fell to the floor.

Hershel walked over to where he sat at the kitchen island.

“I’m sorry for shouting at you,” he said. “I should have known better than to raise my voice so suddenly and I promise to do everything in my power to avoid doing it again. Can you forgive me?”

Alfendi lowered his arms.

“…I mean…” he said slowly. “…you’ve never done it before, so…”

He straightened himself up.

“Yeah.” He managed a small smile. “Yeah, okay.”

He shrank back again as Hershel ruffled his already-messy hair and Katrielle hugged him around his waist.

“Just make sure not to cuss in front of Kat again,” Hershel chided. “Understood?”

“Understood.” Alfendi looked down at the tiny child latched to his body. “Kat, if you hear me say new words, don’t say them to anyone else, okay?”

“Okay!” Katrielle squeaked.

Flora hummed in thought again as Des popped the jar open.

“But nuts don’t have dairy in them, do they?” she asked. “I know you can get peanut oil. Is that what peanut butter is made of? Like how margarine is made of vegetable oil?”

“I doubt it,” said Des, scooping the thick brown spread out of the jar, “but I suppose I can do a little research once this lot’s in the oven. Four ounces of this, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” said Hershel as his brother went in for another scoop. “Normal circumstances would see me making a standard-sized batch, but given that I now have a family of five- OH!”

He stumbled as Descole leapt onto his shoulders.

“Oh wow!” Flora giggled. “She made it in one jump!”

“You alright there, Hershel?” asked Des as he plopped the peanut butter into the scale pan. “I think my favourite scarf almost knocked you over.”

“I’m fine,” Hershel reported as Descole pressed her fluffy head against his cheek. “She just took me by surprise- Descole, be careful!”

He straightened his hat before his cat had a chance to knock it off.

“Alright,” said Des. “Brown sugar. Eight ounces?”

“That’s correct,” Hershel replied. “After all, it isn’t like we’re trying to be healthy today.”

“Good grief,” muttered Des. “Next you’ll be telling me we’re broiling them in golden syrup and deep frying them in melted margarine!”

“I think I saw a recipe like that on the internet once,” said Alfendi.

“Sounds tasty!” Katrielle piped up.

“Sounds like a heart attack,” Flora cringed.

“And now,” Hershel said as the sugar was dumped into the bowl, “we need to cream the mix together, which would normally be _my_ duty if I wasn’t held captive by a mischievous feline.”

“Oh! Ooh oh ooh!” Alfendi thrust his hand into the air. “Let me do it! Let me mix it!”

“Alright, alright!” Des dropped a wooden spoon onto the bowl and presented it to Alfendi. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, you silly boy.”

Alfendi accepted the bowl with a _very_ satisfied smirk.

“And while Alfie takes care of that,” said Hershel, “we can measure out the-”

“ _NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!_ ”

Now it was Hershel’s turn to leap back in shock as Alfendi went _mad_ with the spoon and furiously beat the bowl’s contents into pulpy, creamy submission. Poor Katrielle had to let go of him and lean back or else she would have taken a devastatingly sharp elbow to the face.

“Wow,” gasped Hershel.

“It’s nice to see him so enthusiastic,” Flora commented, “but, um…”

“Good grief, Alfendi, it’s not a race!” Des complained.

Alfendi paused for breath. The bowl’s contents had clumped together into a solid brown mass, the sides of the glass almost totally clean, but before he had even finished panting, he set off again and _pounded_ the mixture so hard that his foster father and uncle worried that he could snap the spoon in half.

“And here I thought we might need an electric mixer,” Hershel said numbly. “Alfie, if you don’t stop soon, you’ll make me feel like I should pay you for your efforts!”

At long last, Alfendi stopped again, panting and heaving as he rested the bowlful of soft, creamy mixture on the countertop.

“I mean…” he gasped. “…I won’t complain if you do…”

Hershel couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’ll see about giving you an extra 50p in your pocket money,” he suggested. “Des? The flour.”

“Ten ounces of self-raising ready to go,” Des reported, and he tipped the heaping white from the scale pan into the mixing bowl.

“Oof…” Hershel waved the dust out of his face. “Care to do the honours again, Alfie? I’d do it myself if Descole wasn’t still-”

“No!” Flora snatched up the bowl. “You guys hardly ever let me into the kitchen! I want to do it!”

Alfendi shrugged.

“Be my guest,” he said simply.

“Do your best!” cheered Katrielle.

“Surely you jest?” asked Des, eyeing Flora with scepticism.

“Let her put herself to the test,” Hershel said happily.

“I’ll try not to make a mess!” Flora promised.

“Okay, _stop,_ ” said Alfendi.

The whole family laughed as Flora began mixing the bowl’s contents into dough. She started with the spoon at first, but it didn’t take long for the mix to get tough and too solid for her to keep going without breaking the handle, so she set the bowl down and went to work with her fingers.

“I’m sorry, Dessy,” said Hershel, reaching for his shoulders, “but I’m going to have to take you down before you fall off and hurt yourself.”

“She’s a cat, she’d land on her feet!” Alfendi pointed out.

Des had his arms crossed as Hershel lowered the cat to the floor.

“I’m still annoyed that you decided to call her that,” he complained.

“But surely you understand the difference between you,” Hershel said as he straightened up, and he leaned to stretch his back. “I never refer to her simply as Des, do I?”

“And we never call you _human_ Des, do we?” asked Alfendi.

“And don’t start!” snapped Des as Alfendi snickered to himself. “Don’t even _think_ about starting that!”

“Don’t be mad, Uncle Des!” Katrielle piped up. “We love you just as much as we love Descole the kitty!”

Des squatted down and picked up the cat, and straightened up with her cradled against his chest.

“We both know how to make ourselves loveable, don’t we?” he asked, fondly scratching her under her chin.

“Speak for yourself,” said Hershel. “You weren’t too loveable when you were driving an excavator to tear a village to pieces.”

“Or kidnapping opera viewers for some weird immortality Hunger Games,” added Alfendi.

“Or helping a guy…” Flora grunted with effort as she kneaded the dough into submission. “…try to bury a city in sand!”

“Or sending me to bed last night without a story!” Katrielle complained.

Des rolled his eyes.

“But I don’t do that anymore,” he pointed out. “And Kat, you didn’t want a story last night, remember? You told me as much yourself!”

Katrielle tapped on her mouth.

“Did I?” she asked.

“You did!” Des insisted.

“I seem to recall overhearing you,” Hershel said as he set out a trio of baking trays. “You told Uncle Des you were too tired for a story.”

“Yeah, you did!” said Alfendi. “I even offered to do it instead and you just yawned at me!”

Katrielle thumped her chin into her hands with a grumpy little frown.

“Then can I have two stories tonight?” she asked.

“No, don’t be greedy!” Des scolded.

“You get _one_ story per night,” Hershel reminded her as he lined the trays with baking paper. “And if you decide you don’t want a story, you don’t get one. It’s as simple as that.”

“Okay, I think I’m done!” Flora held up the bowl with a grin of triumph. “We have our dough!”

“Alright,” said Hershel. “Now is when you kids’ assistance will come into play. We need to divide this dough into balls roughly the size of golf balls, if not a little smaller. I set out three baking trays for us because we’re going to end up making a _lot_ and we need to make sure they’re properly spaced out.”

“Agreed,” said Des from over the top of Descole’s head. “We don’t want our cookies to all be baked into each other.”

“They don’t have to be absolutely perfect,” Hershel told his children as he scooped out a palmful of dough, “but having four sets of hands instead of one should make the process go by a great deal more quickly. It would be nice to have five, but since one of us is having to hold Descole out of the way…”

He looked over at Des, who just gave him a casual shrug.

“This stuff feels really weird,” Alfendi commented as he rolled his first ball. “It’s like… it’s wet, but it’s powdery. How is that possible?”

“It’s like sand!” Katrielle said admiringly as she set hers on a tray. “It’s like wet sand from at the beach!”

“With the twist,” said Des, “that you can _eat_ this sand.”

He grabbed a lump of dough out of the bowl with his finger and slipped it into his mouth.

“Des, for heaven’s sake,” Hershel groaned. “We _just_ had a discussion about not cussing in front of Kat and you’re going eat raw cookie dough right in front of her?”

“It doesn’t have eggs in it!” Des argued back. “We don’t have to be concerned about salmonella when the recipe doesn’t include eggs!”

“Mmmmf!”

All eyes fell upon Katrielle.

Her mouth was surrounded by golden brown smudges and her cheeks were bulging as she chewed.

Her whole family, cat included, watched as she gulped her mouthful down.

She glanced around at all of them.

“…there was a dog,” she lied.

Hershel laughed and scooped out more dough to roll.

* * *

“Alright,” Alfendi said as he set the last ball down. “That’s all of them. What’s next?”

Hershel dug three forks out of the cutlery drawer.

“Now,” he said, “you kids are going to have a race.”

“What?!” Katrielle gasped in wonder.

“What we need to do now,” Hershel said, passing each of the three a fork, “is press the tops of these little balls down with the flat sides of the forks. You don’t want to completely squash them. Just press them down a little so they aren’t perfectly round. The winner gets to be the first to taste the cookies once they’re out of the oven.”

Each of the three youths tugged a tray over to sit in front of them and raised their forks in anticipation.

“On your marks…”

Katrielle stood up on her chair so that she could reach.

“…get set…”

Alfendi glared down at his tray with a salacious grin while Flora narrowed her eyes in determination.

“… _squish_.”

Forks flew. Silver glinted. Trays shifted around from the force.

“And as they come to the first,” Des commentated from behind his hand, “it’s Wine Red taking the lead with Rosebud following from behind and Curly taking last place, but Curly moves closer to the front, overtakes Rosebud, will she catch up to Wine Red in time to take the lead- No! No, Wine Red takes the victory and the right to taste the biscuits first with Curly taking second and Rosebud sliding into last place!”

Alfendi stabbed his fork into the air in triumph while his foster father laughed and he and his brother applauded.

“Yay!” cheered Katrielle.

“But we’ll all get to try them, won’t we?” asked Flora. “It wouldn’t be fair if only Alfie got to have some cookies!”

“No, no, you’ll all get to have some,” Hershel explained. “But Alfie won the race, so he goes first.”

Alfendi stuck his tongue out at Katrielle, who stuck hers out right back.

“And now,” Hershel said as he picked up two of the trays, “these need to go into the oven for between ten and fifteen minutes.”

“Or until the entire house smells fantastic,” added Des as he took up the last tray.

“Dessy, no!”

Flora jumped up from her seat as Hershel opened the oven and caught the cat right as she jumped.

“This _cat!_ ” she sighed, lifting the feline to her chest as Hershel and Des slotted the trays in. “Did you see that?! She almost jumped in!”

“Good catch, Flora,” Hershel said as Des closed the oven. “I can’t say I would have been happy about her getting inside. You’re a _silly_ girl.” He scratched Descole behind her ears.

“Ew.” Katrielle cringed. “I don’t want cat fur on my cookies.”

“I don’t want cat _anything_ on my cookies,” Alfendi agreed. “It’s gross enough cleaning out her litter tray. No way I’m eating something she sat on!”

“Or letting her get _cooked?_ ” Flora asked pointedly.

Alfendi shrugged.

“That too,” he said flippantly.

“But she’s safe,” Hershel said, taking the cat from Flora’s arms, “and that’s what matters.”

Descole purred and settled into his shoulder as though nothing had happened.

* * *

“Now stand back,” Hershel warned. “These trays are _very_ hot.”

“But they smell so good!” Katrielle hopped up and down in her seat as the trays full of cookies were set down in front of her.

“Now _here,_ ” said Des, “is where the use of baking paper will pay off. Observe.”

He set a grille down beside one of the trays and, protecting himself with an oven glove, he lifted that tray and grabbed the paper.

“Come on…” he muttered.

After a moment or two of tugging, he easily slid the paper, cookies and all, onto the grille.

“And now they’ll cool more quickly!” he said happily.

“Yes!” Katrielle punched the air in glee.

“I hope we’ve got enough milk to drink,” said Flora. “You should always have cookies with- Alfie!”

“Alfie, what are you doing?!” Hershel froze, hand half outstretched towards Alfendi.

“You said I could be the first to try them,” Alfendi pointed out, casually examining the cookie he had prised off the paper. “I just thought I’d take advantage of that. And besides, you guys should know how I like to live dangerously.”

“They’re fresh out of the oven, you fool!” Des rubbed his face in exasperation. “You’ll burn your mouth to cinders if you-”

Too late.

Alfendi positioned the cookie between his teeth and _bit_.

It only took a second of chewing for his eyes to bug out of his head, and he slapped a hand over his mouth with a groan of shock and pain. Yet still, he kept chewing.

“See?” said Des. “You brought that on yourself, Alfendi.”

Hershel sighed in defeat and lowered his hand.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, you absolutely did.”

They all watched, enraptured in horror, as Alfendi gulped and gasped for breath, clutching at his throat and staring straight ahead at nothing, his eyes bulging like golf balls.

“That…” he panted. “That _was_ a mistake.”

Flora hopped up from her chair and brought him a glass of water, which he gulped down like a man lost in a desert.

“Good cookies though,” he said, and provided a shaky-handed thumbs-up.

Hershel sighed and smiled to himself.

Whatever was he going to do with these kids?


End file.
